


ain't no wishes in these stars

by selectiveyellow



Series: stronger [1]
Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Angst, F/F, Gen, Post Flight, Very Minor Femslash, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 04:07:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11615535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selectiveyellow/pseuds/selectiveyellow
Summary: It was a closed casket. She sits in front of Izzie now whole and healthy, like the pictures that played on the screen behind the podium.  // Lexie and Izzie talk about death.





	ain't no wishes in these stars

_A little bruising, a little bleeding_  
_Some space that we can breathe in_  
_Some silence in between_

 

 

When she first sees Lexie, she’s leaving work.

A figure standing quiet and still at the corner of her vision causes her to turn her head and her eyes meet Meredith’s sister clear as day, she thinks.

She blinks and the figure is gone.

She goes home and spends the night staring at Meredith’s number on her phone.

 

 

 

 

 

The second time she sees Lexie, she remembers the funeral.

_The news of the crash had chilled her blood ice cold; word traveled quickly through her hospital, unsurprisingly, and honestly, Izzie was already moving to book her ticket back to Seattle before the day was finished._

_She’d stayed at the back. Caught only Meredith’s eye, who nods at her with a ghost of a smile. Stayed in the shadows and thinks of the twisting metal that she was lucky enough not to witness, and the words ‘odds are she should be alive right now’ echoing through her head. She shared a moment with Meredith after, things she can’t say and things she desperately wants to say get stuck in her throat, so instead she pulled her old friend into a hug that she didn’t deserve to have returned._

When she blinks, Lexie stays; Izzie walks away.

 

 

 

 

 

When she sees Lexie a third time, they talk.

“I’m thinking now that going to your funeral was a mistake.”

Lexie raises an eyebrow, lays back on Izzie’s couch looking way too comfortable for someone who never actually visited. “Sorry I’m not as great a sight a fiancé would be.”

“I wouldn’t say that. You look good.”

“Thanks for that.”

It was a closed casket. She sits in front of Izzie now whole and healthy, like the pictures that played on the screen behind the podium. She looks a little bit like her sister. Despite everything, it’s a relief to see. Izzie takes a moment to pour herself a drink because she needs one for this and sits next to her, leaving room on the couch between them even though she doesn’t physically need to.

“I’m so sorry. I should have been there.”

“You don’t have to apologize for that,” Lexie says, and Izzie chooses to believe it’s what she would have really said instead of just being a mouthpiece for what Izzie wishes she could hear. “What are the odds, right?”

She says it like a private joke, lips curled at the corner, the same sort of dark humor that had them laughing and smiling at George’s funeral. Grinning, Izzie sighs and sets her drink down. “Funny, isn’t it? Dying.”

Lexie leans forward like she remembered the answer to a question and for a flash she looks like an intern again. “Oh yeah, you died once.”

“Just once.” Lexie looks at her with a titled head and the dark humor settles a little in Izzie’s stomach, though not enough to shake either of their grins. “Fine, so maybe it’s not _that_ funny.”

Lexie hums through a laugh, stares at Izzie as she finishes her drink and the sense of joking fades because it was really never funny from the start. “How were they?”

“Sad,” Izzie shrugs, gracelessly pushing her glass away. “I think Meredith is just doing her best to cope. New interns. Cristina is gone. Derek’s hand is…not great.”

It’s the lack of Cristina that has Izzie the most concerned, has her thinking about her abandoned friend at all hours since the funeral. “It’s a lot. You _died_ , Little Grey. I just keep thinking I should have been there for her.”

 

 

 

 

 

 _‘You’re not ‘here for me’. You’re_ here _for me.’_

 

 

 

She freezes; the look Lexie was giving her suddenly turns knowing and sad. The air in the room changes as Izzie’s stalling catches up with her and _no, no_ , she’s not ready to face what this means. She’d gladly talk to a dead person for days, weeks, if it means she can go on pretending for just a little while longer. She looks away from Lexie only to see her in front of her again, now standing in the kitchen without actually moving, and Izzie realizes she has no choice and the bitterness slaps her in the face, turns their conversation on its head. She’s weeks away from being an Attending – passed her boards before the crash – but nothing can prepare her for this and she clenches her jaw until her teeth ache.

Embarrassingly, she feels tears prick her eyes and she stands. “Why are you…?” She already knows why, but she asks anyway, staring at the woman her family just barely buried fidgeting her fingers on Izzie’s counter. “People are mourning _you_ , people are missing _you_ , this isn’t about _me_. There’s nothing wrong with _me_.”

She doesn’t care about her cancer. It took and it took and it took, but not as much, never as much, as bullets or planes that fell from the sky.

There’s nothing wrong with her.

She’s reminded that her hallucinations are as tactile as they are visual when Lexie steps towards her and touches her face and she remembers feeling Denny’s heartbeat. “Izzie, I’m –”

“No, it’s not fair!” She flinches away, clenches her fists. “ _You_ shouldn’t be with _me_ , I don’t deserve it. I – there’s _nothing_ , it isn’t true –”

“Izzie.” Hands that aren’t there still her wrists, then reach up to wipe away her tears. “I’m here for you, Izzie.”

Guilt and despair build in Izzie’s chest but she stays silent and Lexie stays close, thumb brushing just under her eye. “I’m here for you.”

 

 

 

 

 

_‘People should face it, and they should fight.’_

 

They let the quiet stretch between them, comfortable and heavy. Lexie sighs and leans away, and Izzie misses the contact. She sits back down and when she looks over Lexie is already at her side, drumming her fingers against the arm of Izzie’s couch.

“I’m sure this would have been easier coming from George. Or…”

 _Denny_ , but Izzie shakes her head because she honestly doesn’t believe it would be and she only has her own psyche to blame. “When I first…I saw Denny because – when I thought of death, I thought of him. And when George died…I wanted to get sick again, so I could see him, talk to him again.”

Lexie starts to nod thoughtfully as if she didn’t know this despite being literally all in Izzie’s head, but it warms Izzie to see anyway.

“You died the most recently.” Lexie’s grin looks like a sarcastic _well_ , _thanks_ , and Izzie smiles sadly back. “You made me miss Seattle. Your sister. Alex. I guess now when I think of death.. I think of everything I left behind. So here you are.”

Lexie looks at her hands, touches her own face. “You make it sound like you brought me back.”

Izzie exhales roughly through her nose. She remembers the times she spoke to the Denny in her head about his stay in heaven. “You know…okay, stay with me for a second.”

Lexie gives her a look that reads _no promises_.

“When your sister died – that day, when the Ferry Boat crashed… She saw Denny. And patients. Her mom. They sent her back, I think.” She pauses and Lexie nods until she continues. “When I died, I saw George. I think he sent me back and moved on instead. I know as a doctor, they were hallucinations but…”

She trails off when Lexie bobs her head the same moment that Izzie remembers hearing from Meredith that Lexie had been doing well in Neuro, and she grins. “I know _you’re_ a hallucination. But I also choose to believe that, what Meredith saw, what I saw – you’re all out there. Somewhere. Maybe waiting for us. Maybe watching over us. Is that crazy?”

Izzie finds, as a doctor and seeing death every day, it was hard to believe in an afterlife or any higher being, and yet the idea of the alternative made her work at times unbearable. The thought that she and Meredith had died and gotten a glimpse of it – of a something, _anything_ – well, it definitely made cancer and plane crashes less horrifying. Barely.

There’s a comfort, oddly, she thinks, in talking to the dead when you’re inching towards it yourself, a timeclock ticking just beneath your skin.

“Izzie Stevens, are you calling me an angel?”

Lexie jerks her out of her thoughts and Izzie can’t help but smile at that. She would have gladly called Denny or George her angels, and looking at her now it isn’t hard for Izzie to convince herself that’s exactly what Lexie is. “I’ll need one for this, don’t you think?”

She feels Lexie rest her weight against her side, just a little, and it feels like purgatory touching earth.

“Yeah. I’ll be here.”

 

 

 

 

She allows herself a moment to touch Lexie’s hand like it wasn’t a lifeline, to just sit and pretend that it was a normal day and she was catching up with an old friend, to pretend that if anyone saw her right now they’d see Lexie too. She thinks Lexie feels the same because she turns and touches her forehead to Izzie’s shoulder. “Iz? I’d really like to see my sister.”

It isn’t real.

But for Izzie, here and now, it _is –_ and she thinks, it’s the least she could do.

“Yeah, Lex. Let’s go see her.”

 

 

 

 

_Baby I'm sorry for the way things are_  
_Goodbye is always hard_  
_And we both will be stronger_

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> considering the amount of times characters who died ""come back"" as ghosts/ghostly imaginations, its interesting to think that the grey's anatomy universe might have an unspoken afterlife - maybe not heaven, but a something at least.
> 
> as heartbreaking as it would be, i feel like if they ever wanted to have izzie return they could use her cancer to cameo characters like lexie and derek, if only for a moment. quite a long shot i know so i did it myself. someone's gotta fill up my otp's tag am i right?
> 
> i have few other rarepairs i want to add to this series, namely meredith x addison, teddy x cristina, and possibly arizona x amelia.


End file.
